County pride and England chaos relegated Hundred to summer undercard | Ali Martin

After pumping astronomical sums of money into English cricket, the headline act of the summer should probably have been the Hundred’s rebirth under private ownership. After all, the decks were relatively clear.

There was no Ashes series or Indian arm-wrestle in Test cricket to hog the limelight, rather a small-plates menu of touring teams. The Women’s T20 World Cup was on home soil, but for all that it outstripped its 50-over equivalent in 2017 by way of impact the men’s football World Cup dominated. Plus, folks kind of knew Nat Sciver-Brunt’s England side was not ready to derail the Australian machine.

Yet six weeks after the Hundred finals at Lord’s, the mood at two of its host counties tells us something about where it sits in the sport’s consciousness. With the best will in the world, beyond a fun day out with the kids and a bumper pay packet for the players involved, it doesn’t appear to be that high.

At Warwickshire on Sunday, they were celebrating their ninth County Championship title, the outfield flooded with supporters and players in clover. No one seemed too fussed that Birmingham Phoenix, the entity that is 50.4% Warwickshire-owned, had stunk out the men’s and women’s Hundred. There was no talk of atonement or it being a mixed season. By definition, it will go down as a famous summer.

Further north at Old Trafford things are very different. Manchester Super Giants won the men’s Hundred, which you would think means people at Lancashire, 30% shareholders and with crossover in staff, are pretty chuffed; that Daniel Gidney would be sprinkled with red rose petals as he leaves his role as chief executive.

Hardly. Finishing second bottom in Division Two with two wins all season, Lancashire have pulled the plug on their end-of-season awards do and supporters are in a state of apoplexy. Mark Chilton has been sacked as director of cricket performance and the incoming chief executive, Richard Kenyon, will soon lead a “clear and objective look at our performance operation” – AKA the dreaded review.

Clearly this is all a bit simplistic. The Hundred has brought a fresh audience through the gates and the lines between the host counties and teams are blurred. More broadly, even if Birmingham Phoenix ultras were not exactly marching to Edgbaston with pitchforks, the franchise world is hardly soft on failure.

Nevertheless, it says something about English sensibilities that the domestic cricket that truly stirred emotions – and in the case of Lancashire, recriminations – still came from its traditional year-round structures. Money isn’t everything, it seems.

The main attention thief – why the Hundred remained on the undercard in 2026 – was still the England men’s team. Even in a supposedly low-key summer by way of opposition, with India’s visit for white-ball cricket the biggest money-spinner, their travails were impossible to ignore. And in particular a Test team that served as the latest reminder about best-laid plans.

It was supposed to be a quiet rebuild, with the status quo retained in terms of leadership and lessons learned from the winter’s Ashes debacle. Instead, the first half of the season was a psychodrama, featuring another late-night drinking incident, a strung-out Ben Stokes quitting as Test captain and Brendon McCullum being demoted to white-ball head coach after the 2-1 Test defeat against New Zealand.

But looking ahead to the winter – white-ball tours of Pakistan and Australia, Test series in South Africa and Bangladesh, plus the 150th Anniversary Test in Melbourne – there is a sense of quiet optimism. Maybe, just maybe, England have emerged from the embers of Stokes’s Viking funeral in better shape.

A year out from the World Cup in southern Africa, England’s white-ball set-up is on the rise. The Twenty20 team have won 23 out of their past 26 games, while after years of neglect the 50-over side has won all six bilateral series this year. Harry Brook’s young thrusters continue to play catch-up – they are absurdly light on domestic 50-over experience – but you can see a team starting to coalesce.

If anything it probably shows how making McCullum head coach in all formats was a mistake in late 2024. Now specialising – and showing little bitterness at having had his wings clipped – McCullum has gone against his image and begun laying down a structured, rigorous set-up. Fitness is his new pet project, while he is even pushing for more pre-World Cup warm-up games. Though Kevin Pietersen’s return as a mentor is a gamble on one level, it could prove inspired.

The Test team’s 3-0 sweep of Pakistan obviously had caveats, chiefly the tourists being ill-equipped to deal with the Dukes ball wobbling off its seam and plumbing new depths of dysfunction when seven players were axed mid-tour. It was not without another sideshow for England either when, at 1-0 up, Brydon Carse briefly wound up in handcuffs outside a Derby nightclub.

Joe Root’s return to captaincy also led to tactical gremlins re-emerging when the little-known Razaullah went tonto at Edgbaston. Root’s returns with the bat dipped, but he provided a sense of calm and clarity after the whirlwind of Stokes, and oversaw a promising new-look pace attack. Ollie Robinson nipped out 29 wickets at nine runs apiece, while Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue bounced out perceptions of fragility by getting through 17 and 15 internationals respectively.

Another healthier aspect was competition for places, rather than pumping caps into a set lineup. Jordan Cox, Dan Lawrence and Emilio Gay did not bolt down spots – Ben Duckett made England’s only Test century all summer – but they made enough of an impression to force a tricky call when Jacob Bethell returns. The Lions set-up also looks better for the appointment of Jonathan Trott as head coach.

There is much work to do, but this looks a sound starting point when Stephen Fleming begins life as the new Test head coach. The sibling-like relationship with McCullum should get him up to speed quickly and allow a grownup division of resources. Fleming has already issued the order to give more credence to the World Test Championship, which can only be a good thing.

Not that it will usurp the Ashes as English cricket’s overriding obsession anytime soon, coming around again as it does in 2027. In turn, expect the Hundred’s wait for top billing in an English summer to continue for some time yet.